End of Year Degree Show – BA Hons Illustration, University of Gloucestershire

Now my time at University is up what a better way to show case my final work for university then at my end of year degree show. We knew as a course from the beginning about the degree show and that our Final Major Project module would be show cased in the event.

Third year was such a crazy rush that I didn’t really start to think about my work in the show until the show was just over a month away! We had to carefully plan our spaces, send our work off to get printed and contribute to the setting up of the show. The weeks leading up required a lot of painting and prep for the space, cleaning floors, hanging frames and putting up shelves. The show had to look uniform but also reflect each illustrator’s work in their own space. We overcame this through starch pasting decorations and characters around the spaces whilst we all had our work in uniform sizes and in the same white washed frames.

Along with our spaces we were contributed work to a small shop space in the degree show. This is quite a unique element I feel to other degree shows and due to the course I did, it felt relevant to sell our own work. We had books, badges, prints, tote bags, pencil cases and framed prints all from different styles, approaches making a really lively and interesting shop.

Opening night was a bit panicked, running from 6pm – 9pm, I rocked up around 8pm worried I may have missed out on something important! It felt like the right time to get there as the show was crazy busy and began to calm down a bit around that time. It gave me a chance to have a proper look around, not only my courses space, but all other student’s spaces from other courses as well.

If you still want to have a look and are in and around the Gloucestershire area, the Degree Show runs from 9th June – 22nd June, 10am – 4pm everyday including weekends. Hardwick Campus, Cheltenham GL50 4BS.